'Is this a sonic screwdriver I see before me ... '

Yes - the long awaited trip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Niamh Cusack (again) and Christopher Eccleston in the Scottish play. 

Only a flying visit, on account of the dog, whose care had been contracted to my son during our absence. But long enough for a wander along Shakespeare's Avon before the play started, where we encountered this guard swan. 

It was interesting to see flowers on the grave of a woman, Mary Ann Page, who died in 1879 ... 

... and this female blackbird, just as unafraid as the swan, scrabbling about in the leaf litter at our feet ... 

... and chucking leaves all over the place. 

We popped into the church quickly to pay our respects to Master Shakespeare, but I'm not going to write about that because I've done it before at length. 

Then there was just enough time at the Dirty Duck for a swift pint.

After the horror of the RSC's Antony and Cleopatra last year, which was so awful I didn't even write about it, it was a relief to be watching a production that worked, albeit at a rather too frenetic pace.











We both liked the child witches, who were clearly channelling the Midwich Cuckoos and the twins from The Shining, but felt that Macduff was miscast - the whole pretty chickens scene was toe-curling and not in a good-but-harrowing way - but the two leading actors were as great as you'd expect, and the Northerner was only two seats away from having his hand held by Lady Macbeth, which would have made his day (though he'd have never got the spot out. Or indeed washed his hand ever again.) 

The Tempest live streamt

Whoever came up with the idea of live streaming top theatrical performances into cinemas around the country and beyond deserves all the riches of Heaven bestowed upon her/him. If nothing else, it permits us masses to retain a fuzzy glow about something, even as our human rights are removed, the NHS and schools are sold off for profit, and our children's wages line the pockets of slum landlords.

The first live stream I saw was a 2011 performance of John Hodge's 'Collaborators', a satire based on the relationship between writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin, in which Simon Russell Beale played the dictator with a (to me very familiar, and therefore terrifying) West Country accent. It was SRB again in a live stream of King Lear three years ago, also at the National, and again three nights ago, playing Prospero in the RSC's latest production of The Tempest.  

Guardian/Tristram Kenton

This time Beale's got his work cut out, being pitted against a jaw-dropping array of special effects that I'd never thought to see in a theatrical production (even one being shown in a cinema). How does an actor impose her- or himself on a whirl of bats, mad dogs, drowning fathers, and fiery spirits, while a pine tree imprisons Ariel before the audience's eyes, tightening and cracking its branches? Rough magic indeed. He manages it, however, as the commanding and mostly calm (but sometimes frighteningly rageful) eye of the storm, ultimately conquering his desire to control others and converting his need for revenge to pity. A humanity that trumps all digital wizardry.

Not all the casting was great. The courtiers were fairly forgettable, Miranda tended to bleat at moments of high tension, Ferdinand resembled Jimmy Carr and was similarly irritating. Stephano and Trinculo were hilarious, however, even though the latter's costume made him look as if he'd stepped straight out of the video for The Prodigy's Firestarter. I was even enthralled by the betrothal masque, through which I usually doze. As for Caliban - well, Caliban made me cry, though that's nothing new. 

In fact, the production stirred a seething of emotions. On a personal level, the settling of post-divorce legal wrangling a few days earlier also put an end to a baleful, 36-year enchantment, allowing me to inhabit fully my brave new world.  More broadly, the intimations in the play of Shakespeare's withdrawal from the theatre, mirrored by Prospero's breaking of his staff, recalled more recent losses, underlined by the first anniversary of David Bowie's death, and I wept a little for all our lost magicians.  And now that the Brexit button is about to be pushed and those who would turn this country into John Of Gaunt's island fortress hold sway, the rest of us must, like Prospero, find a new way forward, where every third thought shall (not quite yet) be the grave.   

Henry V in Stratford-Upon-Avon

And so to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Henry V, which I was excited about as I hadn't seen it before. Not without mixed feelings, though - I love the poetry, but felt worried by the perception of nationalism, and the victorious Henry's suggestion at the end of play that he and his conquered queen beget a son who 'shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard'. 

First, though, a wander along the bank of River Avon, where the already-drawing-in night produced some beautiful plays of light.  

What would Stratford be like without the legacy of its extraordinary son, I wonder?  A stolid, red-brick working town, I should imagine. (Like Devizes, maybe).  

Instead famous actors have memorial stones ... 

... and in the churchyard of the Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare is buried, there's the suspicion that we could be in Narnia. 

Even the doves seemed to be auditioning for Othello as they settled into their habitual roosting sites. 

By now it was time for us to settle too, into our front row seats for a play that has been described as the 'National Anthem in five acts' and thus apposite in a week when the refusal of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to sing 'God Save The Queen' was bigger news, according to the press, than the gravest refugee crisis in decades, the slashing of tax credits, and the continuing attack on the rights of working people.  

Yet there's nothing noble in Shakespeare's depiction of Henry's invasion of France, and in this production, the speech on the Eve of St Crispin's Day is delivered not vaingloriously or even patriotically, but as a rather forlorn attempt to rouse disheartened, outnumbered soldiers with no realistic hope of victory. A bit like this, in fact:

 

My evening was complete when Pistol, played by Antony Byrne, presented me with part of the leek from Fluellen's cap, with which the Welsh captain had beaten him around the head and forced him to eat.  Not quite enough to make soup, though. 

Othello, National Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

A short review I wrote for our local rag ... 

It sometimes seems that each new production of a Shakespeare play demands some singularity, if only to distinguish it from all the others.  With the RSC’s current, modern-dress version of ‘Othello’, directed by Iqbal Khan, it is that our eponymous hero (played by Hugh Quarshie) and his nemesis, Iago (a superb Lucian Msamati), are the same race, yet this shift in perspective is no gimmick.  At a stroke, the racism inherent in the plot becomes more subtle, and complex reasons for Iago’s villainy suggest themselves. For instance, when Iago repeatedly refers to his commanding officer as ‘the Moor’, it is with a degree of sarcasm that leaves the audience in no doubt as to the level of bitterness he feels at having been overlooked for promotion in favour of the spuriously liberal Cassio. Othello is permitted to own his identity, whilst Iago must dance attendance.

Along with Iago as evil-for-the-sake-of-it psychopath, the stereotype of Othello as 'noble Moor' is also jettisoned when we see him sanction waterboarding by his troops and, as his madness deepens, come close to asphyxiating Iago in order to obtain details of Desdemona's presumed infidelity. 

It is the character of Emilia, Iago’s wife, who touches me most, being unwittingly complicit in the fate of her mistress, and in this production she is played with passion and intensity by Ayesha Dharker.  Also outstanding is Ciaran Bagnall’s set, comprising arches and arcades and a pool of water which sees service as a Venetian canal, an instrument of torture, and a bathing pool.  As the jealousy of both Othello and Iago grows, so the mist over the water billows and thickens and the shadows lengthen.  This is an electrifying production that more than makes up for the disappointing Merchant of Venice running concurrently.  

The Merchant Of Venice, National Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

An overnight stay in Stratford, cut short by what turned out to be a wild goose chase courtesy of the estate agents marketing my house. (Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to the closing of this chapter in my life.) 

As if in sympathy, the production we went to see - the RSC's 'The Merchant of Venice', directed by Polly Findlay - was equally rushed. Maybe the cast had tables reserved at the local curry house, maybe they were keen to catch the World Series of Darts on ITV4, but with cuts amounting to almost a third of the play and a breakneck delivery that robbed it of much of its poetry, it was all over in two and a bit hours.

The production isn't helped by the set which fails to give the play any context, the reflective surfaces accentuating the narcissism of characters who have already been stripped of much of their subtlety.  There is no intensity of feeling between any of the characters, with the exception of the lovelorn Antonio, whose passion for Bassiano, himself bent on a marriage of convenience to Portia to improve his financial relations, is the cause of the merchant's deep depression.

This lack of connection is most noticeable in the relationship between Shylock, played by Israeli Arab actor Makram J Khoury, and his daughter, Jessica, who runs off with much of her father's fortune to marry a Christian.  This is important as it is the catalyst for Shylock's later determination to exact vengeance on Antonio, yet the audience never really gets an insight into the reasons behind her behaviour. 

It's a given that none of the characters in 'The Merchant Of Venice' are likeable; in this production, the characters are consumed by their greed and prejudice.  Ultimately, it is the much spat-upon Shylock who elicits the most sympathy, and not just because his costume of cardie and slacks makes him look like Man at C&A.  His dignity in the face of extreme racial abuse makes his lust for vengeance, if not forgiveable, understandable. 

Richard II, Showcase Cinema de Lux, Bristol, Wednesday 14th November 2013

As the queue for Screen 11, the largest in Cabot Circus’ Cinema de Lux, wound around the concourse, I pondered the new-found passion of Bristolians for the works of the Bard.  Or were so many of them waiting to see this inaugural live broadcast from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford simply because David Tennant was playing the titular role?  Yet there wasn’t as much as a glimpse of a sonic screwdriver to be seen the length of the line. 

The evening’s entertainment began with a quaint 1950s introduction to Stratford, followed by a behind-the-scenes peek at the current production.  In between were shots of the stage with a set which looked holographic but actually comprised curtains of hanging chain onto which was projected the image of a soaring nave.  Into these regal surroundings sweeps the fickle, unconscionable Richard, who, having sanctioned the murder of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, banishes his loyal agent, Mowbray, and Mowbray’s accuser, Bolingbroke, even as his victim’s coffin stands centre stage, before seizing Bolingbroke’s inheritance on the death of his father, John of Gaunt. 

It is hard to sympathise with the narcissistic, tyrannical King, but with Queen Elizabeth regarding the usurper Bolingbroke as a threat to the divine right of monarchy, that is what Shakespeare (wisely) asks us to do.  Thus, as his allies desert him and power shifts to the brusque and brutal Bolingbroke, newly returned from exile, the increasingly vulnerable Richard becomes – well, pitiable.

The paradox of this fey, self-defeating ruler is that he only grows in authority as his authority wanes.  Only when he has lost his kingship does Richard appear to value it, only then does the ‘hollow crown’, which earlier slipped almost over Tennant’s eyes, finally seem to fit. 

‘You can’t feel sorry for him!’ hissed my partner as we left the cinema. ‘Remember the Peasants' Revolt!’ But I was eavesdropping on the comments of the audience, in particular those who might have attended in the hope of seeing a reprise of ‘The Shakespeare Code’, when Doctor Who encounters a Bard in the process of writing his play, Love’s Labours Won.  The mood was enthusiastic, surprised even that the language had been a lot easier to understand than they had expected, and with the news that the screening had played to over 60,000 people and generated over £1 million in box office receipts in the UK alone, with more than 34,000 schoolchildren due to see it two days later, this has to be a cause for celebration.  

Photograph © AP Images

All’s Well That Ends Well, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Friday 19th July 2013

You know you are in Stratford when the curry house is called Thespian’s (sic) and boasts a bust of Shakespeare in an alcove.  At our hotel, the theming was relentless, with even the door hangers bearing quotations,  ‘To sleep, perchance to dream’ indicating that the room was unavailable for cleaning – which is rather disconcerting when you consider that Hamlet’s ‘sleep’ was, in fact, death.  The reverse – ‘Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!’ – was altogether more apt.

'All's Well That Ends Well' is regarded as one of Shakespeare's 'problem' plays.  Its main theme can be summarised as 'how to be a man' and concerns Bertram's rite of passage from arrogant ward of the King of France to returning war hero and belatedly loving husand of fellow-ward, Helena, their arranged marriage having been the spur for his departure for war in Italy without consummating it. 

That Bertram resents having to marry Helena even though she is beautiful and otherwise universally admired can be explained by the fact that he is still young and immature, and she is of lowlier birth.  What is more difficult to understand is why she so ardently loves a man who not only despises her, but has few redeeming characteristics.  The ultimate success of the play hinges upon the actress in the role being able to make you believe in her passion, and unfortunately Joanna Horton’s portrayal falls somewhat short.  Her Helena lacks that witchy spark that is evident when she cures the King of France of his apparently fatal illness, and the fact that she tends to recite her lines rather than say them doesn’t help. 

More pleasing is Jonathan Slinger’s portrayal of the odious and cowardly Parolles, an inveterate liar who is quite prepared to betray his fellow soldiers to save his own neck.  Using the typewriter upon which his defamatory statements were recorded as a block for his mock beheading is inspired, given that his name translates as ‘Words’.  Less well conceived is the periodic, over-energetic dancing to loud music to signal to the audience that young soldiers work hard and play hard. It reminded me of the Young Generation on the Rolf Harris Show in the late 60s and early 70s, and felt almost comically out of date.

Quibbles aside, it was a delight to catch this rarely performed play and I would recommend a trip to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see it.

The RSC’s production of ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ runs at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 26^th September.  

Photo © Daily Mirror